Jeff Wilfahrt: "The Constitution our son died for was intended to protect rights not deny them."

A picture from the last time Jeff Wilfart
saw and hugged his son, Andrew. 

I am a bit late in reporting this, but there is a lovely article posted on the Advocate website on March 9th that is well worth the read. I will include a snippet here, but click on over and read the article in its entirety. After all, we need to know everything there is about this wonderful man since he will be, I hope-I hope-oh-please-dear-God-I-hope, Minnesota District 57B's new state Representative in 2012:

Running on a three “E” ticket — “Economy, Equality and Education” — Jeff Wilfahrt notes, “I’ve always had a strong sense of fairness and tried to help ‘right the wrongs.’ This sense was never stronger and clearer to me as when the Minnesota State government moved to allow the marriage amendment to be placed on the November 2012 ballot.”

For the last year, the Wilfahrt family has taken charge of their son’s memory, refusing to assume spectatorship in a society that regards his memory as that of second-class citizen.  Corporal Andrew Wilfahrt was serving as an MP in the U.S. Army when he was killed by an IED near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Jeff Wilfahrt notes with great pride in speeches across the country that his son’s platoon named their combat outpost after him, COP WILFAHRT.  “Andrew was a great warrior and beloved by his fellow soldiers,” Wilfahrt says. “He was also an openly gay soldier.”

A self-confessed introvert, the loving father of a daughter who graduated from Cornell and a younger son in graduate school in North Carolina, Wilfahrt has his campaign cut out for him as he musters his own troops. He’ll do it with a familial courage, casting aside privacy, and determined to effectuate equality for all in Minnesota. Jeff Wilfahrt has entered the race not only to address the “discrimination and inhumanity” of the marriage amendment, “but also to address the many inequities we seem to be building into our communities.”